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There are some fights progressives have to wage constantly, and one of them is over the ways rape victims are questioned and their accusations are treated when the charges become public. It's a fight both frustrating and rewarding, because there are plenty of opportunities for lessons, yet no one seems to learn them. For that reason Jaclyn Friedman's elegant sparsing over the public attention surrounding rape accusations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is my favorite TAP piece this year.
Here's how it works: As soon as a rape accusation makes it into the news cycle (most often because the accused is famous), it's instantly held up against our collective subconscious idea about what Real Rape (or, as Whoopi Goldberg odiously called it, "rape-rape") looks like. Here's a quick primer on that ideal: The rapist is a scary stranger, with a weapon, even better if he's a poor man of color. The victim is a young, white, conventionally pretty, sober, innocent virgin. Also, there are witnesses and/or incontrovertible physical evidence, and the victim goes running to the authorities as soon as the assault is over.As Friedman wrote, what these cases show us is how greatly we misunderstand rape, the particulars that set it apart from other types of crimes, and how ill-equipped we remain as a society to handle charges of rape and to help rape victims. Instead of dealing with it, we rely on sexist tropes to disparage the accuser and rally around whatever charismatic and famous man has been accused. The war's worth having; it would just be nice to make a little headway.-- Monica Potts
